Ternary brazing alloy



April 16, 1963 D. w. RHYS 3,085,320

TERNARY BRAZING ALLOY Filed July 18, 1958 Cu 90 ao 7o 6O 50 40 30 2010 Ni COPPER-V0 DAVID WADE RHYS INVENTOR.

ATTORNEY 3,085,320 TERNARY BRAZING ALLOY David Wade Rhys, Houuslow, England, assignor to The international Nickel Company, Inc, New York, N.Y.,

a corporation of Delaware Filed July 18, 1958, Ser. No. 749,475 Claims priority, application Great Britain (let. 1, 1957 3 Claims. (Cl. 29-194) The present invention relates to brazing and, more particularly, to brazing alloys or solders adapted to be used in joining metal parts into articles exposed in use to elevated temperatures.

It is well known that in the brazing of metal parts to form. articles subjected in use to temperatures of 550 C. and above, for example, up to about 900 C., it is necessary to use a brazing alloy which will give a strong joint at these temperatures. The alloys commonly used in the past for this purpose have been base-metal compositions but these tend to react readily with the parent alloys, i.e., the alloys to be joined together. In consequence they flow sluggishly and do not readily make well-filled joints.

Considerable improvement is obtained with nickelpalladium-manganese alloys, which flow readily and form joints which are strong at high temperatures. A brazing alloy is, however, commonly required in the form of wire, foil or the like because in such a form it can be easily applied in the requisite amount and in the correct location. Now the nickel-palladium-manganese alloys are difiicult to work into wire, foil or the like. With difiiculty they can be so worked, but the wear on the tools is considerable.

Silver-palladium-manganese alloys are also better as brazing alloys than the aforementioned base-metal alloys, but suffer from a tendency to lose paladium and manganese into the parent alloys by diffusion, leaving a comparatively weak, silver-rich layer in the joint. Although attempts were made to overcome the foregoing difiiculties and other disadvantages, none, as far as I am aware, was entirely successful when carried into practice commercially on an industrial scale.

It has now been discovered that by the use of a special soldering technique involving the use of a special solder the aforementioned disadvantages may be overcome.

It is an object of the invention to provide an improved, easily workable soldering alloy characterized by improved resistance to shear at elevated temperatures when employed in a joint, said alloy having requisite wetting and flowing properties and having a melting point of not less than about 1000- C. nor more than about 1250 C.

Another object of the invention is to provide a method of successfully and satisfactorily soldering heat resistant, chromium-containing alloys, such as nickel-chromium and nickel-chromium-iron alloys, wherein the soldered joint is characterized by improved mechanical properties at elevated temperatures, particularly improved resistance to shear.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a fabricated structural gas turbine assembly comprised of a plurality of heat resistant chromium-containing alloy members united by a solder joint comprised of a special joining alloy, the joined portions of the members having an improved combination of properties at elevated temperatures as compared to joined portions produced with conventional jointing alloys.

The invention also provides a fabricated gas turbine structure comprising members of a chromium-containing alloy, such as nickel-chromium and nickel-chromium-iron alloys, united by one or more solder joints comprised of a special joining alloy, said structure being characterized 3,085,320- Patented Apr. 16, 1963 ice by high mechanical strength, high creep resistance and by improved resistance to oxidation and to scaling at elevated temperatures of the order of about 550 C. to 900 C.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a fabricated gas turbine blade comprised of members of a chromium-containing alloy, e.g., nickel-chromium and nickel-chromium-iron alloys, united by one or more solder joints containing a special soldering alloy, said turbine blade being characterized by high mechanical strength and by improved resistance to creep, to oxidation and to scaling at elevated temperatures of the order of about 550 C. to 900 C.

The invention also contemplates providing a fabricated hollow blade structure for gas turbines comprising members of a chromium-containing alloy, such as nickelchromium and nickel-chromium-iron alloys, united by a joint comprised of a special joining alloy, said hollow blade structure being characterized by high mechanical strength and by improved resistance to creep, to shear, to oxidation and to scaling at elevated temperatures of the order of about 550 C. to 900 C.

Other objects and advantages will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing in which the FIGURE is a ternary diagram showing diagrammatically the ranges of copper, nickel and palladium contemplated in accordance with the present invention.

Generally speaking, the present invention is based on the surprising discovery that other ternary alloys are superior to the alloys previously used for the purpose in question. The alloys used for brazing metal parts according to the invention are ternary copper-palladiumnickel alloys having compositions falling within the crosshatched area in the accompanying drawing. This area is defined by the co-ordinates of the points a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, which specify the following alloy compositions according to the invention:

Points Pd Ni Cu The alloys within the aforementioned range of composi tion are readily worked without damage to the tools into the required forms such as wire, sheet, strip, etc., so that the solder can be readily placed in situ between the parts to be joined. The alloys according to the invention melt at temperatures of the order of about 1000* C. to about 1250 C., have good flowing and wetting characteristics when molten and have a decreased tendency to react with the constituents of alloy parts to be joined. Thus, the solders of the present invention have a minimized tendency to react with such elements as nickel, chromium, molybdenum, etc. Further the alloys of the present invention are characterized by a low potential for diffusion into high temperature heat-resisting alloy components. The effect of this low potential is that the rate of diffusion of the constituents of the novel solder of the present invention into the joint components at elevated temperatures is substantially lower than the diffusion rate encountered when prior alloys such as discussed hereinbefore are used.

The invention includes the brazing of parts with the use of these ternary alloys to form articles subjected in use to temperatures of 550 C. and above, though not, of course, to a temperature above the solidus temperature of the brazing alloy. These parts such as turbine blade components, hollow turbine blade components, turbine rotors, turbine stators, etc., commonly consist of alloys which (by reason of the presence of chromium, aluminum, titanium or other elements) tend to form coherent, tenacious and refractory oxide films on their surfaces and so are resistant to scaling at high temperatures of the order of about 550 C. to about 900 C. Examples are alloys consisting predominantly of nickel, or nickel plus cobalt, with at least 5% chromium and with or without other elements such in particular as iron, titanium, aluminum and molybdenum; and austenitic chromium-containing steels, e.g., those of the 18% chromium-8% nickel type. The alloys can also be used with advantage for joining nickel-molybdenum creep-resisting alloys, tungsten and molybdenum. It will be understood that the parts to be joined may be of identical alloys or metals, or that one may be of one of these alloys or metals and the other of another of these alloys or metals.

The refractory oxide films formed by most of these alloys may be removed to enable a good joint to be formed by effecting the brazing with a flux of borax, boric acid or a mixture of borax and boric acid in a hydrogen atmosphere. The parts are then subjected to a temperature in excess of about 1000 C. and below the melting point of the components to be joined while in mutual contact with the solder of the present invention 'in order to eitect the joining thereof. The parts are then cooled, for example, to about 900 C. while maintaining the components in fixed relationship.

It is an advantage of the alloys-used according to .the invention which contain about. 10% to about 70% copper, about 10% to about 60% nickel and about 110% to about 60% palladium in amounts as correlated in the drawing that the clearance between the parts to be joined is not critical; not only do the alloys flow well when molten through capillary openings, but they will also fill large openings, so it is not necessary in preparing the surfaces to be joined to make them mate with one another exactly. Satisfactory alloys within the contemplation of the present invention are listed in the table below:

It is to be noted that the solders of the present invention may contain, in addition to copper, palladium and nickel, small amounts of impurities such as iron and cobalt in a total amount not exceeding about 2%. These impurities in these amounts do not deleteriously effect the basic and novel characteristics of the solders of the present invention.

It is a further advantage that the alloys in accordance with the invention are better adapted to vacuum brazing because at their flowing temperatures they have a lesser tendency to volatilize under vacuum than the prior alloys.

It is to be observed that the present invention provides a joining alloy and a method for the production of fabricated gas turbine sub-assemblies or structures made of parts of chormium-containing or molybdenum-containing alloys, such as nickel-chromium, nickel-chromium-iron and nickel-molybdenum alloys, united by a joint comprised of the joining alloy containing copper, nickel ,"and palladium as essential elements, whereby the united metal parts or members can be successfully and satisfactorily 4! used at high service temperatures of the order of about 550 C. to 900 C.

As employed in the present specification and claims, the term heat-resistant metal is used to include metals and alloys having a melting point greater than about 1300 C., which contain one or more of the following elements in amounts 'up to about 20% iron, up to about 10% aluminum, up to about 10% titanium, up to about 2% zirconium, up to about 10% tantalum, up to about 10% niobium, up to about 10% tungsten, up to about 0.2% boron, up to about 2% copper, up to about 0.5% manganese, up to about 2% vanadium and up to about 1% beryllium and the balance being at least 5% and up to of at least one metal selected from the group consisting of nickel, cobalt, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten and niobium.

Although the present invention has been described in conjunction with preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that modifications and variations may be resorted to without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, as those skilled in the art will readily understand. Such modifications and variations are considered to be within the purview and scope of the invention and appended claims.

I claim:

1. An easily workable solder characterized by an improved combination of properties, including good wetting and flowing properties in contact with chromium-containing metals, oxidation resistance, creep resistance, mechanical strength and having a low diffusion potential, for joining parts made of chromium-containing heat-resisting alloys into gas turbine structures and the like, which comprises a substantially ternary alloy consisting of about 10% to about 70% copper, about 10% to about 60% palladium and about 10% to about 60% nickel in coordinated amounts falling within the ranges defined by the cross hatched area in the accompanying drawing.

2. An improved fabricated gas turbine structure made of a plurality of structural members of a heat resistant chromium-containing alloy selected from the group consisting of nickel-chromium and nickel-chromium-iron alloys united by at least one solder joint and adapted to be subjected to corrosive conditions prevailing in gas turbines at high service temperatures of the order of about 550 C. to 900 C. and characterized within said temperature range by high mechanical strength and high resistance to creep, to oxidation and to scaling, said solder joint consisting of a substantially ternary joining alloy consisting essentially of about 10% to about 70% copper, about 10% to about 60% palladium and about 10% to about 60% nickel in coordinated amounts falling within the ranges defined by the cross hatched area in the accompanying drawing.

3. An improved fabricated assembly made of a plurality of structural members of a heat resistant chromiumcontaining alloy united by at least one solder joint and adapted to be subjected to corrosive conditions at high service temperatures and characterized at high service temperatures by a high combination of high mechanical strength and high resistance to creep, to oxidation and to scaling, said solder joint consisting of a substantially ternary joining alloy consisting essentially of about 10% to about 70% copper, about 10% to about 60% palladium and about 10% to about 60% nickel in coordinated amounts falling within theranges defined by the cross hatched area in the accompanying drawing.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,779,602 Kingsbury Oct. 28, 1930 2,824,659 Rhodes et-al. Feb. 25, 1958 2,844,867 Wernz et al July 29, 1958 2,903,353 Bredzs Sept. 8, 1959 

1. AN EASILY WORKABLE SOLDER CHARACTERIZED BY AN IMPROVED COMBINATION OF PROPERTIES, INCLUDING GOOD WETTING AND FLOWING PROPERTIES IN CONTACT WITH CHROMIUM-CONTAINING METALS, OXIDATION RESISTANCE, CREEP RESISTANCE, MECHANICAL STRENGTH AND HAVING A LOW DIFFUSION POTETIAL, FOR JOINING PARTS MADE OF CHROMIUM-CONTAINING HEAT-RESISTING ALLOYS INTO GAS TURBINE STRUCTURES AND THE LIKE, WHICH COMPRISES A SUBSTANTIALLY TERNARY ALLOY CONSISTING OF ABOUT 10% TO ABOUT 70% COPPER, ABOUT 10% TO ABOUT 60% PALLADIUM AND ABOUT 10% TO ABOUT 60% NICKEL IN COORDINATED AMOUNTS FALLING WITHIN THE RANGES DEFINED BY THE CROSS HATCHED AREA IN THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWING.
 3. AN IMPROVED FABRICATED ASSEMBLY MADE OF A PLURALITY OF STRUCTURAL MEMBERS OF A HEAT RESISTANT CHROMIUMCONTAINING ALLOY UNITED BY AT LEAST ONE SOLDER JOINT AND ADAPTED TO BE SUBJECTED TO CORROSIVE CONDITIONS AT HIGH SERVICE TEMPERATURES AND CHARACTERIZED AT HIGH SERVICE TEMPERATURES BY A HIGH COMBINATION OF HIGH MECHANICAL STRENGTH AND HIGH RESISTANCE TO CREEP, TO OXIDATION AND TO SCALING, SAID SOLDER JOINT CONSISTING OF A SUBSTANTIALLY TERNARY JOINING ALLOY CONSISTING ESSENTIALLY OF ABOUT 10% TO ABOUT 70% COPPER, ABOUT 10% TO ABOUT 60% PALLADIUM AND ABOUT 10% TO ABOUT 60% NICKEL IN COORDINATED AMOUNTS FALLING WITHIN THE RANGES DEFINED BY THE CROSS HATCHED AREA IN THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWING. 